This invention relates to the in vitro testing of volatile chemicals.
The toxic response of living organisms to organic chemicals is unpredictable. The safety of any chemical depends on factors such as route, time and frequency of administration, physical and chemical form of the material, dosage, acute as compared to chronic exposure, and the like.
The methods for testing and quantitizing toxic response include mass screening, either of a single chemical with a variety of organisms or a single organism with a variety of chemicals. The techniques for toxicity screening arc generally well established.
The current technique for toxicity screening of volatile compounds, i.e., compounds which are in the gasous state at about 20.degree. C. and 1 atm., particularly volatile compounds which are not soluble in aqueous media, has several drawbacks. The technique uses standard tissue culture plates, a sealed chamber, a rocker platform and a large capacity incubator. The culture plates containing the organism(s) under consideration are stacked in the sealed chamber. The chamber is filled with the volatile chemical under consideration. The chamber and the rocker platform are placed in the incubator where the organisms are incubated at a selected temperature for a desired time.
One limitation of this method is that measurement of disappearance of the volatile test compound cannot be accomplished due to the large ratio of head space volume to cell volume. Another limitation is that there is no assurance that all the test plates are exposed to the same concentration of test compound, particularly since the plates are generally stacked in the sealed chamber. A further drawback is that samples of medium cannot be taken from the plates without violating the integrity of the exposure conditions. Yet another limitation is that plastics which interact with the volatile test compound cannot be used in this method.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a culture bottle for the in vitro exposure of a cell culture to a volatile chemical which overcomes the above-listed drawbacks.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved method for the in vitro exposure of a cell culture to a volatile chemical.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art.